Dr. Know: Groundhog Day... Again

Do they factor in global warming before groundhogs come out of their holes?

ILLUSTRATION: Hawk Krall

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It’s Groundhog Day and I heard he didn’t see his
shadow. Early spring maybe? When groundhogs get up in the morning on
Groundhog Day, do they factor in global warming before they come out of
their holes?

—Steve M.

I wouldn’t read too much into this, Steve. After all,
Punxsutawney Phil, the attention-whore groundhog who sucks up the
Groundhog Day headlines for the whole country, was predicting the
weather in Pennsylvania, not here.

Luckily, Portland has
its own tradition. In our version, we rather insufferably point out
that, actually, Groundhog Day derives from earlier, European traditions
involving a hedgehog, and so it’s really more correct to use Jabari, an
African pygmy hedgehog at the Oregon Zoo. I swear I am not making this
up. Leave it to Portland to do Groundhog Day with an artisan groundhog.

For the record,
Jabari saw his shadow. Also for the record, both Jabari and Phil are
wrong well over half the time. This is probably due to the coming
climate apocalypse that is rapidly rendering the concept of “winter”
obsolete. (When the streets run red with blood and the living envy the
dead, don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Groundhog Day is
derived from a pagan holiday called Imbolc, the festival of—I shit you
not—the lactating ewe. The date falls halfway between the winter
solstice and the spring equinox, in keeping with the ancient Druidic
hobby of splitting the calendar into ever smaller and more pointless
sections, and was Christianized as Candlemas. (Not to be confused with
Handlemas, the festival of 1.75-liter liquor bottles.)

Imbolc is one of the
four main Gaelic seasonal festivals, along with Lughnasadh, Beltane and
Samhain. Any of these would be a great day to burn a wicker man with
your boss inside. Who knew Groundhog Day could be so metal?